My old buddy Pan and I originally planned a week reunion together to explore Cambodia and his roots. However when visiting his family we realized that living in a rural village in one of the poorest countries in the world is no easy task.

I took 3 weeks off from backpacking to relax in Da Nang, Vietnam. One of the best things about Da Nang is the incredibly delicious variety of street foods. It’s about $1 a meal and with my $10 per night hotel, I was living pretty comfortably under $20 a day.

A solo hike. A thunderstorm. A search for shelter that landed me with E’qchi’ Mayans in Guatemala.

I travel for new experiences and to understand different cultures. After 4 months of backpacking Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala I decided I wanted to go somewhere no tourist has gone before. It took some debilitating food poisoning the day prior in order to reflect and motivate myself enough to venture…